A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 867: Six Sects with One Million People, Sect Order Gewuyuan

The theory of the Bai family ancestral hall sequence is just my personal opinion. It is a division made for the current collateral families under the Bai family according to their influence. In fact, it has no official endorsement.

Ever since their ancestor Bai Chen implemented the division of the Bai family into clans and the establishment of halls, the Bai clan members all over the world have used the hall as the smallest family organization.

The main clan governs the four clans, thus exercising the control of the Bai family's direct lineage over the branches.

Completely bringing together the scattered members of the Bai clan, the Bai clan can truly speak as one family, and as blood relatives, they can directly influence the situation in the entire world.

Instead of being like in the past, where the head of the family controlled the Bai family, the Bai family controlled Hebei, and used Hebei to influence the situation in the world.

And they are often unable to influence the entire world, and can only have a certain impact on the north. The south has never been the Bai family's sphere of influence.

But now, since the Su family moved south and various branches of the Bai family set up shops in Jiangnan, the Bai family's influence on Jiangnan has become more profound.

This has led to the current structure of the Bai family, which consists of six clans and multiple halls.

The six sects are the main sect, the eastern sect, the western sect, the northern sect, the southern sect, and the southwestern sect.

As for the various halls of the Bai family, there are too many of them, hundreds and even thousands. Small halls have dozens of clansmen gathered under them, while large ones have thousands or even tens of thousands of clansmen.

Therefore, the main family of the Bai clan can rely on this clan system to gather nearly one million Bai clan members across the country together, making the court and the royal family cautious.

Therefore, within the clan system, there are divisions based on the level of influence.

[Sequence One], there is only one, which is the Dahuai Hall where the head of the family is located. It is not only the head of all halls, but also the hall where the head of the main clan is located. And because of the existence of the head of the family, it is in a transcendent position and is listed as a separate class.

[Sequence Two] refers to the various halls under the main sect. There are only a few of them now, but each one is powerful enough to influence the world.

For example, Erhuai Hall, the original hall name of the Duke of Qiao’s Mansion, has been intermarried with the royal family for generations and is a family of officials, enough to influence the rest of the world through the court.

[Sequence Three] is the name of the hall where the leaders of the five sects are located. Its influence is second only to the halls under the main sect and can affect a large area.

For example, the Qiannan Hall where the leader of the Southwestern Sect is located has inherited the Qianguo Mansion and controls the Qiannan Army. As the overlord of Qiannan Road, it can not only influence Qiannan, but also Shu, Ba, Jing and other places, which is enough to be called a powerful family in the southwest.

[Sequence Four] means that the clans under each clan are prosperous, with generations of people holding official positions, and can influence a small area, such as the hall names of several nearby states and counties.

As mentioned before, the Luoyang Hall has a great influence in the surrounding areas of Luoyang because its people have served as officials in the court for generations. There are thousands of clan members involved in all walks of life, which is no less influential than the now weak Five Surnames and Seven Families.

[Sequence Five], the influence is less than that of a state, and is limited to two or three counties. It is just a hall name that breaks through the influence of a county.

For example, in the Qilitang that was separated from the Baiwang Sect, some of the clan members have been serving as officials in the county government and prefecture government for generations. They may not be able to change the general situation, but they are able to survive in the prefecture and county and protect their clan members from being bullied.

[Sequence Six], a hall name of this sequence can only ensure that the clan members can have enough food and clothing and gain a foothold in the village. Perhaps from time to time, a clan member will pass the imperial examination, but it cannot last for a long time. If you are not careful, you will lose your official position.

Just like the Qilitang where Bai Wangzong was previously located, their clansmen ranged from dozens to hundreds.

[Sequence Seven], this is already the lowest hall name in the Bai clan’s ancestral hall sequence. They are at the bottom of the Bai clan’s hundreds of thousands of clan members.

Most of them are clan members whose families have fallen on hard times, or clan members who have just separated from the larger clan to form their own clan.

Often dozens of clansmen would gather together to barely ensure that the family tree and clan genealogy passed down by their ancestors were not lost.

They were often exploited by petty clerks and officials, and almost no one in their family worked in government.

If they are not careful, perhaps due to a natural disaster or a man-made disaster, the family tree will be lost, and they will have no choice but to flee and become ordinary people in the world.

The result was either the extinction of the family line, or the change of surname by marrying into another family, or death in an accident. However, they also had the opportunity to escape this embarrassing position. Before the family split up, perhaps a member of the family passed the imperial examination and was granted an official position, or a member of the family obtained a military position through recruitment.

If everything goes smoothly and there are no accidents, after a few decades, when the tribe members retire, they will have a great chance of being promoted to Sequence Five.

What's more, there was a descendant of the Bai family who had lost his family tree. He, alone, made great contributions by relying on the surname Bai, and then obtained guarantees from other members of the Bai family. He was able to reopen his family and even jumped to a high position in the family.

However, this kind of thing happens very rarely, rarely once in a hundred years. Instead, the majority of cases involve the loss of family tree, the annihilation of many people, or the extinction of descendants.

In the entire clan sequence, one is the super sequence, two and three are the high sequences, four, five and six are the middle sequences, and seven is the only low sequence.

It can be predicted that if the Bai family can successfully maintain this system without any accidents, the Bai family will replace the hearts of all the people in the world with the hearts of one family.

However, things are always changing, and not everything goes smoothly.

Take the current situation for example. The Bai family has nurtured scholars in Hebei, Henan and Guanzhong for hundreds of years, but it all went to waste in one day.

In this turmoil, the direct losses of the Bai family members included two-thirds in Henan, one-third in Hebei, and one-third in Guanzhong.

This does not include the tribesmen who migrated during the turmoil and then disappeared due to lack of income.

Therefore, the family had to respond to this situation.

"Master, the young master is here."

In the main courtyard, Bai Qing was holding a pair of shears, hunched over, and constantly trimming the branches on the roadside. When he heard Bai Zonggui's words, he glanced at them and nodded, and Bai Zonggui tactfully withdrew.

After Bai Zonggui left, Bai Qing straightened his back and said, "Please sit down and pour me a cup of herbal tea."

Bai Jing nodded, walked straight to the stone table not far away, put down two teacups, took out the already brewed herbal tea from the ice bucket beside, poured it into the teacups, and handed them to Bai Qing who had just sat down.

"It is now the hottest time of the year. It is only because Baizhuang is at the foot of Songxi Mountain that it would be even hotter. This herbal tea is a good thing. Ziliang (Bai Ziliang, the successor of the Bai family in Jiangnan) had someone send it from Fuzhou. It is just right to drink it now."

Bai Jing also picked it up to taste it, and after taking a sip he couldn't help but sigh: "Ha, it's really refreshing."

Bai Qing laughed:

"This is thanks to the family's Gewuyuan (formerly the Special Research Institute). Last month, someone at the Gewuyuan invented a saltpeter ice-making method that can create ice out of thin air. Now every household in Baizhuang is equipped with it, which is enough to resist the summer heat."

Bai Jing picked up a small ice cube from the ice bucket, felt the coolness, and said curiously: "He is truly a god."

Bai Qing waved his hand: "It's nothing mysterious, you just haven't seen much. The reason why the family can trade all over the world and make all the wealth in the world is that they live long and their products are of high quality."

"And the quality of these products can only be maintained by the Institute of Gewu's constant discovery of new things and the Institute of Craftsmen's innovation."

"Otherwise, how do you think that since there are so many people in the world who know how to make paper, how can the family sell more at a low price?"

Bai Jing agreed, "Only in this way can the head of the family survive for a thousand years."

"Okay." Bai Qing stopped Bai Jing from asking about his thoughts and said, "I didn't ask you to come here to talk about these things. These things will come naturally when you become the head of the family."

"I asked you to come here because I have an important task for you to do."

(End of this chapter)